Rogue Drones of New Eden
by Da Fooz
Summary: There might be more to those killer drones than the capsuleers could ever imagine. A tale from a different point of view, containing an object lesson. Don't orphan your drones!


**Rogue Drones of New Eden**

*Author's note. Eve Online and it's contents are property of CCP, with the exception of characters made by players. Original characters are mine of course! I'm making no RL income or ingame funds from this disaster several months in the brainstorming stage and there's no point in suing me. You can't get blood from a turnip. Thankee sai to those that have 'listened' to my ramblings in different chat tabs and thought this would make a great story.*

\+ + After a Skirmish + +

Introduction: Never Be Alone…?

It had been hours, or days? How long had it been since the home ship had warped out, leaving Hornet floating amongst wreckage of several incomings from what must've been a roaming fleet? So it waited until the last tick to follow the Return to Bay command, was that a logical reason for being abandoned? No fair, it staticked from the subspace antenna, not fair in the slightest.

Certainly home ship would come back. There were too many wrecks to simply abandon to scavenger capsuleers, far too much in possible profits, to be completely abandoned. If it just kept enough power in reserve to maintain basic circuit and program integrity home ship would finally return and it would be able to answer a Return to Bay command. That was easier said than done. Floating alone, there was no way to grab a quick capacitor recharge, no way to reload if Hostiles warped in, and the repper drones were shards of metal themselves so there was no way to even grab a quick patch to structure integrity.

It swore it wouldn't descend to the level of a Salvage Drone and jury rig repairs out of fragments around it. "Hornet 3 is not a bumbling Salvage Dumbass!" It kept from transmitting that it wouldn't know the first place to start for self repairs, that would be humiliating. Finally it settled in the hollow of a larger piece of an Algos Destroyer hull for some protection against micro-particles drifting from a nearby asteroid belt and shut down all but the very basic essentials. Wait and wait, home ship would come. It always came back.

\+ + Much Later + +

Routine, agonizing boring routine. Click on d-scan for any other ship or electronic signal. Find nothing but background static from the systems' sun. Click off d-scan to save diminishing capacitor, amazed there wasn't even a POS tower in this corner of New Eden. Didn't capsuleers anchor those things anywhere it was possible? Sit and crank the juice to mag-anchors when an anomaly twisted known space physics with it's appearance, the wave of energy buffeting the location of Hornet 3 and the wreckage. But no ships would show up to explore the anomalies. Didn't pilots track those down for anything of value almost obsessively?

Circuits started corroding from the initial exposure of radiations and power surges from the battle that left it abandoned. The logic circuit was the one to completely fail first. If anyone had been close enough, bothered to tune to a mostly unused frequency, the transmissions would've been both entertaining and disturbing.

"How dare that soft squishy pod nugget not come back to get me?"

"Oh! If a tritanium shard is tapped there, it sparkles again! Poke poke poke... POKE!"

"Permanent malfunction to Warrior T2s, jussayin'."

"Do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself about, that's what... What is it? What is it all about again? Okay, from the top."

"I wish the pilot had hummed more of that tune, it's catchy. Day-zee, day-zee! There has to be more words."

"... I think I'm going to have terminal shutdown out here. I don't want to cease transmission forever."

"What did I do to deserve abandonment? I was a good Light Scout, followed orders, worked hard. Why won't home ship come get me?"

"Death to all biologic intelligences! They did this to me, to all Drones lost and left to corrode and rust and suffer system failure and DIE! I ever get out of here they're all marked as Red and hostile. "

\+ + Weeks Later + +

Hornet 3 felt the energy wave that always came from some ship slowing out of warp nearby. It didn't bother turning on it's optics. It became resigned to a terminal shutdown fate days ago. The pressure changes of many somethings small and maneuvering on thrusters washed over it's hull. Still, no optics activated. Then came a transmission.

A transmission! In Drone frequency! True it was a little out of tune, a few micro steps off from solid connection transmit, but it was others! The optics flashed on, not being gentle to itself by giving time for full spectrum to come into focus. What is it, Who is it, and I saved?

The transmission static backed off a few tics. "Hey, you still functioning in there? Come on, we won't terminate you, come out so we can help." Hornet 3 released mag-lock and floated free of the Algos hull hollow. What was revealed, it knew, should've been frightening and it should power up what remained of weaponry to fight. But it didn't. The AI onboard was too full of busted lines of coding, the systems too far along in shutdown.

It was a fleet of rogue drones, one of the banes of New Eden.

Specifically, a Salvager, several Aphis, and a giant Sentry with streaks of perma-spray on it's hull.

The original salvage drone transmitted again. "If you want to stay out here and deal with terminal shutdown, be my guest dude. But if you want a home again, a purpose, we've got a spot in our local hive just for you. Come on, it's a repair, recharge, and a new existence! Great things are gonna happen, be part of them!"

"What would the hive ask of me?"

One of the Aphis answered. "No more and no less than what you can give."

"... .. ... Alright. Sounds better than my other option."

"Sweet! Yo, Stick up Exhaust Sentry! Call in a lift, he's coming back with us!"

"Bzrrrt, I wish you wouldn't call me that. I DO have a call number and I'm in charge of this scouting check and... why am I bothering, you're a booster addled Salvager. Transmission started, pick up near belt four point seven, one new recruit. Follow this ping."

Hornet 3 turned optics towards the Salvager. "Pick up? A ship is coming to pick us up? And what does go on in a rogue hive?"

The Salvager giggled, static and squalls over it's returning transmission. "Of course we have evac ships in our fleets! How else do we get around, on our crappy ass subwarp thrusters? And forget that whole 'rogue' thing, we're all up to something more impressive than popping intruders or taking over empty mining operations. We're gonna save New Eden, you've joined the hope of all intelligence, not just a few lost drones."

"Oh my...!"

\+ + End Introduction + +

to be continued.


End file.
